December of 1991 was the first time I drove east on I-20 into Columbia County, and in January of 1992 I moved here. That was 21 years ago. To Martinez and Evans, I say thank you. Thank you for 21 great years. Thank you that there is still a place where people open doors for one another and let each other pull out in traffic. We can still be polite. We can look up from our smartphones long enough to have a conversation or at least share a smile. What a novel idea. Simple courtesies like these make living here better.

A strange thing happened at Walmart the other day. I’ll get to that in a moment.

Black Friday and cyber Monday are in the rear view mirror. Have you purchased your technology gifts for your kids yet?

Today the world of technology can overtake us as parents.

Our children and teens do not know of a time in their lives without computers, free apps on their iPods and Wi-Fi. I can remember when all we had was a Hi-Fi, a record player in the living room and “Pong” was all the rage.